Those Who Feel Nothing (21 page)

‘Is it still there?'

‘Forensics will take all day, ma'am.'

Donaldson was avoiding her eyes as they talked, still clearly pissed off with her. She couldn't blame him but she couldn't let his moodiness get in the way.

‘Any indication of ethnicity?'

‘Best talk to Mr Bilson about that, ma'am.'

‘I will do. And the tunnel?'

‘Doesn't lead anywhere – it's blocked up a few yards in.'

‘Do you think it's been blocked for a long time?'

Donaldson stared at her. ‘I had assumed so.'

‘OK. I'd like the blockage clearing – but with the understanding the tunnel is a crime scene. Could you ask Bilson if he has a moment for me?'

She looked round the storeroom, which was now totally empty of boxes and black bags.

‘Do I have a moment for the delectable Detective Inspector Sarah Gilchrist?' a tall man with a sharp face said, bending as he came through the small doorway. ‘My dear Sarah, I have much more than that for you.'

‘I'm sure, Mr Bilson – it's perhaps as well you're in your onesie so you can't demonstrate exactly what.'

‘True, true – and these are such a pain to get on and off. I don't want to come any closer because then I'll have to put another one on.' He tilted his head and looked at her speculatively. ‘Might be worth it though.'

‘It wouldn't be,' Gilchrist said. ‘Trust me on that. So what have we got?'

‘Give me a chance, Detective Inspector, I've only been here five minutes. I usually take at least seven to solve your case for you.'

She pretended to look at her watch. ‘I can wait.'

‘I can tell you the person who left the body here or committed the murder here – I don't know which yet – either wanted to prevent the smell of decomposition or he read a lot of old crime fiction.'

‘Because?'

‘He covered it in quicklime.'

Gilchrist nodded. ‘Which do you think it was? He thought it would speed up decomposition or he wanted to slow it to avoid the smell?'

One of the few things she remembered of all the many things Bilson had told her over the years was that, contrary to popular misconception from fiction films and books, quicklime did not destroy bone and tissue. It leached the water from a body and that set off a chemical reaction in the quicklime which produced slaked lime. This preserved the body, mummifying it. It also prevented the microorganisms breeding that broke down the body and in doing so produced the foul smells.

‘So what can you tell me?'

‘His face has been bashed in, so not much there. His teeth have been looked after by a British dentist – the fillings are distinctive. Judging from the hair and what I can make out of skin colour from patches as yet unmummified I'd say he was of South-East Asian ethnicity. Possibly Chinese.'

‘Possibly Cambodian?'

He gave her a sharp look. ‘Perhaps. You have a supposition you want me to confirm, I take it?'

‘If I knew what a
supposition
was I'd say “possibly”. Can you take a DNA sample? I'll have one for you to try to match later in the day.'

Bilson gave a little mock salute. ‘Until then, Sarah.'

She half-bowed. ‘Until then, Mr Bilson.'

‘So you're offering your services,' Sal Paradise had said to you as you sat beside your pool coughing up vodka. ‘In return for what?'

‘I told you – I want to know what happened to this woman Michelle in Cambodia in late 1978.'

‘I seem to recall I told you at the time. She was killed in an ambush along with her father.'

‘So you do remember her?' you said.

‘Vaguely.'

‘Well, you'll remember that you told me she had been killed along with my former colleagues. But my former colleagues are still alive.'

‘Not all of them,' Paradise said. ‘Only Mr Rogers and Mr Howe survived.'

‘They work for you now?'

‘In a loose sort of way – although actually they are answerable to someone else.' Paradise leaned forward. ‘But you're saying you're good enough at whatever you do for me to consider using you?'

You'd got your breath back by then. You put your hands behind your head and grabbed the ankles of the man standing there. At the same time, you rolled back, using your momentum to kick him with both feet in the face.

As he fell back against one of the other men you did a kind of breakdance spin to the side, taking your weight on your hands and arms to scythe your legs low into the legs of a third man. Neal you dealt with by jumping to your feet, grabbing his wrists and turning them out, breaking both his arms. It was easy but horribly noisy. The crack of bone seemed to reverberate in the yard until his screams took its place.

You glanced at Paradise, still in his seat.

He shook his head. ‘Shut him the fuck up, will you,' he said in a bored voice. ‘He's giving me a headache.'

You obliged Paradise with a short jab to Neal's chin. His head snapped back and you caught him round the waist and lowered him to the floor. When you've broken a man's arms you don't need him to fall on them as well.

You turned to Paradise.

‘OK,' he said. ‘There's this man I need dealing with. Guy called Harry Nesbo.'

Gilchrist invited Donaldson to join her and Heap upstairs to examine the artefacts. In the Pavilion entrance, Heap and Donaldson studiously avoided each other until a beaming Merivale loped across the gardens, raising his hand in a little wave. Gilchrist was aware of Heap watching her so merely nodded her head at the FBI agent. Plus she was peeved. She was feeling exhausted and was sure she looked it. Merivale looked fresh as a daisy. Bastard.

She introduced Donaldson and told Merivale about the corpse. Rutherford joined them. She gave Merivale the once-over as they walked towards her. Introductions made, she hung back with Gilchrist for a moment, raised an eyebrow and wafted her hand in front of her face as if cooling herself down. Gilchrist looked down to hide her grin. He was a hunk all right.

‘What are you looking for in particular?' Rutherford asked Merivale as she led them down the long corridor towards the banqueting hall.

‘Whatever we can find,' Merivale said, looking to left and right at the nodding Chinese statuettes on either side of them.

‘I've been checking with the Museum Association,' Rutherford said. ‘Apparently the Holy Grail in missing Cambodian artefacts is a bronze figure of Ganesh from the thirteenth century.'

Merivale gave her an assessing look. ‘That's true,' he murmured. ‘You have it here?'

Rutherford shook her head. ‘I don't think so – but wouldn't that be something?'

‘You haven't finished unpacking the boxes?'

‘In fact, we stopped when we realized what we had. We need more expert hands. A British Museum expert is joining us.'

‘You know I'm going to have to take over these artefacts?' he said politely.

‘I guessed,' Rutherford said.

‘I'm intending to get them moved to a secure place as soon as possible,' he said, addressing both Gilchrist and Rutherford.

Gilchrist nodded. ‘Ganesh is who, exactly?' she said.

‘The elephant-headed god in the Hindu pantheon,' Rutherford said. ‘There's one of him in the British Museum from Cambodia where he is represented with breasts and four arms.'

‘Breasts?' Heap said.

Rutherford stopped in the corridor and looked over her glasses at him. ‘What – you accept the idea of him having the head of an elephant but you worry about the fact he has breasts?'

Gilchrist and Heap laughed. Gilchrist thought about the hermaphrodite they'd encountered a few months earlier who'd had both breasts and penis.

‘I wasn't worrying,' Heap said, red-faced. ‘I was clarifying.'

‘He's the god of success and a remover of obstacles,' Rutherford continued. ‘You can see why he was popular with traders and merchants heading out from India in the twelfth century. They took him with them as they spread out over South-East Asia. In Indochina Hinduism and Buddhism were practised side by side, so they influenced each other. Buddhists like Ganesh too.'

‘What makes this one so special?' Gilchrist said.

Rutherford glanced at Merivale to see if he wanted to answer but he said nothing. ‘It's size,' she said. ‘It's massive.'

‘How massive?' Gilchrist said.

‘Some twelve feet high. That's how I'm pretty sure we haven't got it – we don't have a box that big.'

Gilchrist frowned. ‘Is that so big?'

Merivale did come in now. ‘Well, he was often depicted in bronze in ancient Cambodia but on a small scale,' he said. ‘The ancient Khmer preferred to work in stone but you can't carve stone easily in miniature. Particularly a small figure with multiple arms and a trunk.'

‘And breasts,' Heap murmured.

‘But this is the only known example of one cast in bronze of such a size.'

‘Is bronze valuable?' Heap said.

Merivale glanced at Rutherford.

‘It partly depends on the value of the metals used to make the bronze,' Rutherford said. ‘Different metals were used to achieve different colours: gold, silver, copper, pewter, bismuth and so on.'

‘It's the art in the piece that has the value, not the materials,' Merivale said. ‘Didn't some London park have a Barbara Hepworth bronze stolen from it for its scrap value? That would have been nothing compared to its worth on the art market.'

‘How rare is this piece?' Gilchrist said.

‘It's unique – until another one turns up, of course.'

‘Where was it stolen from?'

Merivale looked at Rutherford, who shook her head.

‘I don't have that information.'

Merivale shrugged. ‘Me neither.'

She led them into the banqueting room. She pointed at the boxes in the centre of the room. ‘There it all is.'

Bob Watts went back to the Bath Arms for a pint. It was crowded and he ended up sitting near a guy who was talking to himself. Never a good sign but made worse by the fact that actually the guy would clearly much rather be talking to someone other than himself. Watts realized it was the security guard from the museum again.

Watts focused on his drink and tried not to think about what wild conspiracy theory the man might wish to share. Watts was feeling foolish that he had been so open in his inquiries at the shop. He thought he'd been doing OK with the Frenchwoman until it was time to leave, just after he'd asked whether the owners were around.

‘They're rarely around,' she said. ‘They spend most of their time away. As you see, we have an office in Siem Reap. We also have connections in Budapest.'

‘Siem Reap is where Angkor Wat is?' Watts said.

‘It's the nearest town, yes.'

‘You import Hungarian objects too?'

‘Not so much. It's more of a distribution point for the Asian things we sell around Europe.'

Watts frowned. ‘I assumed you would ship these big pieces in by sea.'

She looked perplexed. ‘We do.'

‘Hungary is land-locked.'

She laughed. It was a nice laugh. ‘I guess you've never heard of the Danube.'

‘I know it empties into the Black Sea. That doesn't seem too direct a route from China.'

He couldn't figure out her smile. ‘I'm not an expert on maritime export routes,' she said, still smiling. ‘I leave that to my bosses. All I know is that our goods come into this country via Newhaven. Legitimately.'

‘I wasn't supposing anything other than legitimately.'

‘You seem to be taking an inordinate interest in our business,' she said with a tilt of her head.

‘Curiosity about things is my strength and my weakness,' he said, an apologetic smile on his face. ‘I like to figure out how things work.'

She seemed to accept that. She looked at him but didn't say anything.

‘OK, well, I'd better let you get on,' he said.

‘You were just looking,' she said, her eyes not leaving his.

‘Wandered in on a whim, I admit.'

She smiled at him again. She was a very good-looking woman.

‘So you're not going to ask me out on a date?'

He was actually quite surprised but then he was useless with women. He was out of his depth. Again.

‘Is that what you think I was building up to?'

‘Lot of wasted effort otherwise, surely?'

‘Whatever happened to the simple art of conversation?' he said, almost plaintively.

She smiled back at him. ‘You really think any conversation is simple?'

He shook his head. After a moment he said: ‘Do you mind if I ask your name?'

She held out her hand. ‘My name is Monique.'

He gave her hand a gentle shake. ‘I'm—'

‘You're Bob Watts, our new police commissioner.'

So much for being discreet.

You are at the flea market on the outskirts of Budapest. It is bitterly cold and everyone is in warm hats and thick coats. Everyone except you. You are wearing warmer clothing than in Cambodia but it is still not right for this harsh weather.

A sprawling, haphazard place, part shanty town, part junk yard. Boardwalks of splintered and rotting wood sinking into mud, odd slabs of concrete and uneven paving stones.

It stinks of desperation.

A man with raw hands stands in the open beside what looks like a small trash heap. You look closer and see it is made up of old tools and spare parts all tangled together: nuts and bolts, spanners and hammers, spools of wire, cogs and chisels. Beyond him an old lady huddles in a fur coat and Cossack hat beside a table on which she has a few vases and wine glasses. She has a look on her face that suggests her cupboard is now bare.

You walk down a narrow alley between tiny wooden stalls. As you near the end of the alley, the stalls have crude wooden rooms behind them containing paintings in heavy frames hung above old desks and chests of drawers.